Blue Star Chronicles

Angelina Jolie showed up to have lunch with our Troops in the Green Zone in Baghdad today. She was there in her role as U.N. Ambassador to assess the humanitarian issues there.

Of her mission, Angelina has said: “There’s lots of goodwill and lots of discussion, but there seems to be just a lot of talk at the moment, and a lot of pieces that need to be put together.

“I’m trying to figure out what they are.”

“What happens in Iraq and how Iraq settles in the years to come is going to affect the entire Middle East.

“It’s in our best interest to address a humanitarian crisis on this scale because displacement can lead to a lot of instability and aggression.”

It should come as no surprise that there’s more talk than action - that’s the way it always is. Let’s have another meeting and discuss it more. I don’t see that changing any time soon. I certainly don’t see United Nations doing anything effective for anything other than sending celebrities around as spokespersons and raising them more money.

Still, all in all, I have to give Angelina credit for having lunch with our Troops. I’m sure she had more security than the President has when he goes there and I’m also sure she didn’t step foot out of the Green Zone. Undoubtedly she cheered the troops. I have no idea what her politics are or how she feels about our military. I’ve seen her do things with the Troops before so I give her the benefit of the doubt.

Even General Petraeus made time to meet with her! I’m so sure he did! LOL

BAGHDAD (AP) — Note to world leaders: Next time you need instant access to foreign dignitaries and top military brass, forget the usual protocols. Just send in Angelina Jolie.

Hollywood’s globe-trotting leading lady swooped into Baghdad on Thursday to highlight the plight of Iraqi refugees, gaining an audience with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the American Embassy said.

On her mission as a U.N. goodwill ambassador, Jolie also met with Iraqi migration officials to stress that there needs to be a coherent plan for the more than 2 million internally displaced Iraqis who are beginning to trickle back to their homes amid a recent lull in violence.

“There’s lots of goodwill and lots of discussion, but there seems to be just a lot of talk at the moment,” Jolie said in excerpts of an interview aired on CNN.

Jolie mingled with American troops during lunch at a dining facility in the heavily guarded Green Zone, which houses the embassy and Iraqi government offices. She grabbed a red plastic tray at the mess hall, collected her lunch and sat at a long banquet table to eat — her fork tines down, of course — as flashbulbs from soldiers’ digital cameras lit up the wall behind her.

During the CNN interview, Jolie said the fate of Iraq will have an impact on the Middle East for years to come.

“And a big part of what it’s going to affect,” she said, “is how these people are returned and settled into their homes and their community and brought back together and whether they can live together and what their communities look like.”